Our Voices, Our Stories

First year pupils, now in second year, have had a brilliant and exciting journey with West Dunbartonshire Citizens Advice Bureau (WDCAB).

 Working together we looked at how to challenge poverty stigma and created ʻOur Voices, Our Storiesʼ - our very own graphic storybook and animations.

The CEO of WDCAB, Joe McCormack, emphasised how great but also how scary the experience has been.

From asking how to start, not knowing how we would take it on and show interest in the subject, until now where we recently facilitated an awareness raising event in Clydebank Town Hall where attendees included multiple influencers from our community, including our local MP and Councillor.

Joe shared his initial concerns to a few of the pupils who are ambassadors of this project saying: “I was quite nervous because I've never done anything like this before.

“It made me think about things differently. It's made me think about stepping back and just listening to other people's ideas.”

The local Bureau started in the 1970s and Joe said they were inspired to start this project by local people like Maureen Cummings and her husband who started Old Kilpatrickʼs food pantry.

One of the pupils asked Joe where he sees the project in the next five years.

He replied they will hopefully get it to all S1 year groups in the whole of West Dunbartonshire by then, but as of 2026 he would like to get this across the whole S1 year group in SPTA and hopefully go further as this project has been “incredible and a great learning experience.”

But the impact of the project could reach much further than West Dunbartonshire as Joe has been approached by several CABs from Aberdeen to the Borders who want to find out more.

And the project has a four- page feature in the national CAB Network magazine with the storybook graphics on the front cover!

“We never believed we would get this far in 12 months,” said Joe.

“I think that getting all the S1 and probably S2 pupils talking about this, talking about how they can help, I think that's a good thing for the community, for local people, just to find local solutions themselves.”

My peers in my class interviewed each other about the project and what they had learned.

One pupil said: “There is always a place to go if you need help and you never really know what is going on in other people's lives behind closed doors.”

Another one added that they liked the project, the communication and that they got to speak out about poverty from a child's point of view, as well as saying they enjoyed the project.

I think all my peers agree.

This project has made a huge impact on how we see things now. We are more aware of what is going on in other people's lives, our community and even the world.

From the start, Joe and the Citizens Advice Bureau have been amazing. They didn't know how this would go or how the class would respond.

The project has come so far from just sitting in a class - we even had Paul from Magic Torch Comics to help bring our comics to life and have an interactive day.

 Finally, from my experience, I thought it was a meaningful and heartfelt project as it teaches us not only the struggles others are going through but also the challenges people face in their day-to-day life.

I am very proud of how far this project came to life with the help of Joe, Robyn, Mr Allan and the other facilitators from Citizens Advice (James, Gary and Lonjezo).

I hope for it to grow even further in the next few years.

‘Our Voices, Our Stories’ was created as part of a pilot project led by West Dunbartonshire Citizens Advice Bureau, the Glasgow Social Policy Project, Glasgow Caledonian University and St Peter the Apostle High School.

Read and download the comic FREE here.